Addicted to action, Cruise has to reach to fill a tall order

Date: January 03 2013

Philippa Hawker

Jack Reacher (M)
General release (130 minutes)

TOM Cruise is no stranger to controversy when he brings a well-known fictional character to the screen.

In 1994 there was a to-do when he was cast as Lestat in Interview With A Vampire: even the book's author, Anne Rice, went public with her disappointment. She said that he was no more her idea of Lestat than Edward G. Robinson was Rhett Butler. She backed down, however, after she saw the film, and took out an ad in Variety to rave about it.

Now, Cruise is starring in an adaptation of a novel, part of a series by crime writer Lee Child, and many fans of the books have expressed their disapproval. Reacher is an enigmatic figure, a former military police officer who leads an itinerant, under-the-radar life, yet gets caught up, to often violent effect, in crimes and mysteries. He's a powerful, brutal man, 6 feet 5 inches (196 centimetres) tall. Cruise is about a foot shorter, and this lack of height seems to be a deal-breaker for Reacher regulars. But is this really enough to rule him out of contention for the role? Or should it mean that Vince Vaughn (who has the inches) would have been a better bet?

It's hard to know how resolute the opposition really is. And if the hardcore Reacher readers stay away, there is still a Cruise fanbase, and filmgoers who are prepared to turn out for his action movies. Yet it's debatable how satisfied any of these groups will be with Jack Reacher.

The movie, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie (writer of The Usual Suspects), is adapted from One Shot, Child's ninth novel. It begins with a tense, unsettling sequence involving a sniper taking up his position on top of a Pittsburgh parking garage and shooting five random victims. Police soon track down a suspect. He makes a request of the police: he asks them to contact Jack Reacher, a name that means nothing to them. Then the man himself appears with almost spooky rapidity, and proceeds to become involved in the case as an investigator for the defence lawyer, Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike).

The plot - the investigation of a seemingly open-and-shut case - is fairly basic. Television crime shows have taken us through these kinds of hoops, although minus the action, violence and car chases, all of which are competently handled.

It's interesting to wonder what it is about certain roles - Reacher and Mission Impossible's Ethan Hunt - that attracts Cruise, and motivates him to become closely involved with their production. Both characters live outside normal society; they are self-sufficient, super-efficient and easily able to best those around them, intellectually and physically.

Cruise is certainly capable, in theory, of playing these kinds of parts. In the Mission Impossible series, there's something about the preposterousness and extremity of the set-up that gives pleasure to the viewer: the movies themselves are the stars.

But in McQuarrie's Jack Reacher, the viewer needs to be able to appreciate Cruise and his evident superiority over those around him - and that can be a little wearing, to say the least. What the film does offer, as a curious positive, is a brief appearance by director Werner Herzog, as a villain. And in a flat, yet unnerving way, Herzog gives us a glimpse of extreme, dark possibilities.

Cruise's best role, in recent years, was the hitman Vincent in Michael Mann's Collateral - a figure with a charming exterior and heart of ice, who wasn't the star of the movie. If only he saw himself, more often, in these kinds of roles.

★★★

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